EMPIRE OF BROKEN teeth, scraped knees and tiny bits of glass. He is the king of the playground thanks to his hormonal problem, stealing toys and cutting line at the slide. His mother pretends not to notice and consults the article in her purse about that new medication. Intrigue by the jungle gym: the twins in striped shirts plan a coup. Parents gossip on benches. See, it runs in the family. Rumor has it this is where she met her new husband; their kids got into a fight in the tree house and they looked into each other’s eyes and just knew. Where’s her bottle. What’s that sound. The swing set squeaks, a gargoyle tuning instruments. Mayo gone translucent in the heat. Under low stone bridges trolls are invisible. He thought this path was the way out but instead it takes him farther in. Then the spectacular malevolence of a cloud. You can see it creeping across the meadow before it hits you. So cold and abrupt. Like a friend.
SO MANY PEOPLE running. Is something chasing them. Yes, something different is chasing each of them and gaining slowly. She feels fit and trim. People remove layers one by one the deeper they get into the park. The sweaters keep falling from their waists no matter how they tie them. The matching strides of the jogging pair give no indication that after she tells her secret he will stop and bend and put his palms to his knees. Like some of the trees here, some of today’s miseries are evergreen. Others merely deciduous. This is his tenth attempt to join the jogging culture. This latest outfit will do the trick. Pant and heave. How much farther. Reservoir of what. Small devices keep track of ingrown miles. Unfold these laps from their tight circuit to make marathons. It’s his best time yet, never to be repeated. If he had known, he would have saved it for after a hard day at the office or a marital argument. Instead all he has is sweat stains to commemorate. One convert says, I’m going to come here every day from now on. It’s so refreshing.
WHAT WE REALLY need are popsicles. If they’d foreseen this heat, the vendors would have stocked up on ice. Lukewarm lemonade but who can complain. Let’s move to the shade. Fools wade in fountains. Their family looks happier than yours. This is where they came on their first date, so he steers her to this grove and hopes she will realize the error of her ways. She looks at her watch. Sunlight catches on glass surfaces and bits of metal. Glad we came but now I’m tired. It’s not really a shortcut, cutting across the park, because there are places he cannot walk, that are fenced off, there are no direct paths and there goes his chance of making the surprise party. Behind that rock they smoke a joint. Next time less spit, please. For an assignment for school he collects leaves and twigs for examination under microscope. Bear away bits and pieces of this place. You probably need a permit.
IT’S GOT BIRDS and a steady ratio of human-to-guano contact. It’s got weeping willows. They remind me of me. It has ponds. People can’t see themselves and pronounce ponds murky but in fact they are perfect mirrors. Great day to be a caricaturist—everyone remembered to bring their faces. Benign sketches will be forgotten under benches and bus seats. The more damning ones lead to new haircuts. Is my nose really that big. Skin obscured all winter is out of practice. Have I always had this mole and if so is it getting bigger. His conspicuous long sleeves hide hesitation marks, souvenirs of that bad summer. The lines at the fountain are too long. Superpowerful nozzles drench faces. He runs along, shouting encouragement to his kite. Great day for flying a kite. Tried it in the middle of Broadway once, what a disaster. The boy starts spinning around and around in order to get dizzy and look at his funny walk. Pull up your drawers, girl. He says, I wish we had kids, blaming her with his tone. He never comes here even though he only lives two blocks away and now that he has forced himself to take in the sunshine everything is still terrible. Isn’t that the cutest puppy. The old philosophers said it best: picking up chicks at the dog run is easy. No particular place to be. Just taking it all in.
GREEN. For whole minutes it is as if you live somewhere else than where you do. And what is that like. Like there are other choices. And then one bullying highrise pokes its head up west, then another, and a whole gang of them east and suddenly come out with your hands up, you’re surrounded. Regiments on all sides. Armies don’t get better than this. Stray too close to the edge and you’ll be reminded as edifices frown down. Not yet. She goes deeper in.
THE BENCH she chooses turns out to be the location of the dance performance. Dancers and musicians hang a shingle in a good-luck spot according to their subculture. Just her and them at first but then the drums summon strollers, one couple, then ten, soon swaying human rings. Latecomers want to know what’s going on in there. I’m always too late. People can’t help themselves and feet tap, fingers tap. After untold basement rehearsals the dancers have it down pat. Look around. Brought together in this moment in a park on the first day of spring. A community. And fancy that in a city. Back to a time before zoning and rebar, one tribe, drums talking. Something that cannot be planned. Everybody knows they must remember this feeling because soon it is back to the usual debasement and they try to remember and then it stops. Cash and coins fill the small basket. Cheapskates avert their eyes and then everybody moves on to that next brief oasis. It never happened. Except her on that bench. She stretches her arms. What a nice day.
ALL AT ONCE they want to go home. Something about the light. Everyone knows how to fold a blanket. Responsible citizens clean up, retrieving bits of themselves from blades of grass. Anything you brought here you must take away. Anything you found here must remain: it can’t exist outside. People hear traffic as they get close to traffic and remember rules. Big hungry city but some relief: they know the rules again. At the Don’t Walk sign he comes to his senses, possessing dinner plans. He sighs. Glad that’s over.
SUBWAY
AFTER THOSE STEPS turnstiles spin and schemes kick in, where to stand and wait. It is hard to escape the suspicion that your train just left, the last squeal of your train drained away the moment you reached the platform, and if you had acted differently everything would be better. You should have left sooner, primped less. Reconsiderations: taking a cab, grabbing a bus, hoofing it. No, it’s too far and the train is coming. It must be coming. Why else would you stand there.
THIS IS THE fabled journey underground, folks, and it’s going to get a whole lot worse before it gets better. On the opposite track it’s a field of greener grass, you gotta beat trains off with a stick. From his secret booth the announcer scares and reassures alternately. The postures on the platform sag or stiffen appropriately. With a dial controlling the amount of static. What are their rooms like, the men at the microphones. One day the fiscal improprieties of the subway announcer’s union will be exposed and that will be the end of the hot tubs and lobster, but until then they break out the bubbly. Look down the tunnel one more time and your behavior will describe a psychiatric disorder. It’s infectious. They take turns looking down into darkness and the platform is a clock: the more people standing dumb, the more time has passed since the last train. The people fall from above into hourglass dunes. Collect like seconds.
THERE’S A CULTURE for platforms and a culture for between stations. On the platform there are strategies of where seats will appear when the doors open, of where you want to be when you get off, of how to outmaneuver these impromptu nemeses. So many variables, everyone’s a mathematician with an advanced degree. Wait. Those elephantine ears of hers. Does she know something he doesn’t, she’s moving closer to the edge, and then he hears the roar, too. The herd trembles, the lion approaches, instincts awaken. The jaws slide apart and the people step inside. Various sounds of gorging.
WHICH CAR will you choose. Take your pick. In the happy-go-lucky car the wattage of their smiles brightens the tunnels. In the no-particular-place-to-go car they are recumbent. In the going-to-be-late car the grimace festival is in full swing. In the had-a-long-day car there are no seats. So again we must ask, which car will you choose. Dilemmas escalate. Can I make it to the seat before she gets there. Their eyes meet and they calculate distance. Stared down once again he gives up,
such is his lot, and he leans against the conductor’s door. At the next station the conductor has to shove against to get out.
LET ’EM OUT, let’em out. From stop to stop oblong advertisements suddenly get interesting in a strange sort of way. Along the fungi hall of fame we are introduced to ailments. Has anybody ever in history copied down the phone number of the dermatologist with the sinister name. After all these years he still hopes the needy will receive his revolutionary technique but for now must make do with these flimsy cardboard advertisements. You are inducted. Advertisements that meant nothing to you last week are now your last hope. Look above their scalps. That is salvation up there and maybe a poem.
ONLY AFTER a while does he notice her and give up his seat to the elderly lady. The pregnant lady, the man with the leg injury. His unfortunate good manners. Scootch over. Scootch away from the smelly wino. It’s just a piece of candy wrapper but no one touches it for fear that it contains the world and so one empty seat on the crowded subway car. Spying an empty seat but when you get there soda sloshes. At the next stop someone sits in it and he feels bad for not warning him but that’s not his job really. Realization drains into the man’s face as the soda leaks through: now there are two seats wet. A vehicular library. Bibles and bestsellers keep away the other citizens’ faces. Newspapers in foreign languages cater to communities. Accidentally touch the underside of the seat and become an advocate for stricter gum laws. Halfway to the interview she notices two typos in her résumé. The man on her right snoozes amid the jolts and leans his head on her shoulder as if he sensed her angelhood. Too polite, she resorts to ineffectual nudges. It’s kind of funny, actually. The woman across the car smiles at her plight. At the next station he awakes mysteriously and bolts.
DO NOT hold the doors, do not lean against the doors, the doors are not your friend. If you want friends start a club based on mutual interests, do not come into the subway. He is perfectly attired save for his socks, which mark and doom him when he crosses his legs. The homeless man hopes the next car will be more generous. The musician with the broken trumpet irritates. People examine the scuff marks on their shoes when he walks by with his cup. You reach into your pocket for change but forgot you used it on that phone call and isn’t it awkward with that guy sticking his hand out. Folding his coat on his lap to hide the sudden inexplicable erection.
OUT OF the tunnel and suddenly elevated. Second-floor city. Looking into apartments, browsing lives and what people throw up on their walls. There are never any people in the apartments. Scores of tenement tableaux registering on the eye mostly as moods, mostly sad and blue. He can see through the windows into the next car and wonders if they are happy in there. Cars start off at the same station and then diverge. Two different lines with estranged termini, kin despite complicated parentage. And they’re off. His car takes an early lead, a window length, and then through struts the competition surges ahead. His car catches up. They meet eyes. Their expressions do not change. This place has practiced them in stuffing down weakness. And then that other car begins its submarine dive here, the tracks go deeper into the earth on their own secret route, west or north, no time for farewells. Let’s call it a draw. There’s always next time.
A PERCENTAGE about to get off stands too soon. About to get off but jumped the gun and it’s all black out there. Vaguely embarrassed. Their seats are already filled. Should he switch here, he wonders, as the cars pull in to existential station. Run. They all dash out to the local, some come the other way to the express, in rare cases transfers end up taking each other’s seats on the other train. It happens less frequently with these modern cars, on these modern tracks, but sometimes the lights go out and what do you do then with all these monsters beside you. I remember when this used to cost a dime. If this car were suddenly transported to a desert island and they were like stuck there she could maybe make out with that guy. Why are you standing so close to me. Is he trying to read the map behind her or interviewing her scalp: you make the call. Here it is, the class trip in their identical day camp T-shirts. Peppy adults herd and hector. Everybody stick together. Pick a buddy. Have you once again picked the car with class trip. Stuck here with these midget mewling things. Too young for sex they punch each other in the arm.
WE ARE STUCK in the tunnel on account of a police action at the station ahead of us. We are stuck in the tunnel on account of a sick passenger on the train in front of us. Him again, that rheumy bitch. For someone so sick, he sure gets around a lot. Perhaps he is merely more evolved and now allergic to filth and speed. Take up a collection to subsidize a private limo for the sick passenger. The announcer tries to give information. Every mishap down here radiates outside this car, generating excuses arguments likely stories. What happens down here fertilizes that up-top world. There are slim walkways for mole employees to walk on without being crushed. They have day-glo vests and a deep longing for those who rush by. They get paid to be subterranean. To know what it is to work down there. She finds grit in her fingernails as she speeds past them.
STRAPHANGING actually an antiquated term. It’s all metal now, swiveling commas, poles in perpendicular arrangements. But they still hang, still droop, dangle on curled fingers. Feet next to feet. The pole is sickeningly warm God forbid moist from previous fingers. Microbes rejoice. His hand slides slowly down the pole, touching her fingers, so she bids her fingers retreat. He chases, they bump again, she retreats farther. Their hands slide down, all without eye contact. One of many daily contests here. Beware of frottage. Readjust your balance at every lurch. If you don’t know what time it is, wait for a peek when he changes his grip. Even if they pulled into his station right now it would be too late.
HIS HEART speeds up before his mind can process the fear: haven’t they been between stations for too long. Stationless for quite a while now and it is quite disconcerting. Suddenly realizing you’ve taken the express. Past familiar stations, farther than you have ever gone before. Neighborhoods you have heard of but never reckoned. Burrowing under a river, good God the horror of a whole different borough. It could be apocalypse above for all you know and who wouldn’t think disaster, stuck in the tunnel like that. Isn’t this slope just a little too deep. Going down. They have laid rail into the center of the earth and this is where we are going. There are tales of phantom lines, haunted stations. We’ve all sped past ghost stations where the exits have been bricked up and graffiti warns in looping letters. Abandon all hope. There is no escape if the train stops at ghost stations and we will mill in purgatory. That explains it: he died today without knowing and now this train is taking him to the underworld. Then you suddenly pull in and have to pay again to switch.
THEY ROCK in unison, at least they agree on that one small thing. Check their wallets—the denominations won’t jibe. Review their prayers—the names of their gods won’t match. What they cherish and hold dear, their ideals and shopping lists, are as different and numerous as their destinations. But all is not lost. Look around, they’re doing a little dance now in the subway car and without rehearsal they all rock together. Shudder and lurch together to the car’s orchestrations. Some of them even humming. Everybody’s in this together until the next stop, when some of them will get off and some others get on. This is your stop. Get off. Get off now and hurry, before you are trapped in the underworld.
RAIN
OUT ON the street they hardly notice the clouds before it starts raining. The rain comes down in sheets. Drenched all at once, not drop by drop. The first drop is the pistol at the start of the race and at that crack people move for shelter, any ragtag thing, they huddle under ripped awnings, the doorway of the diner, suddenly an appetite for coffee. Pressed up against buildings as if on the lam. Little sprints and dashes between horizontal cover. Dry here. Surely it will stop soon, they think. They can wait it out. It cannot last forever.
SUSPECTING such an eventuality, the umbrella salesmen emerge to make deals. They wait all week for this and have ample supply of one-dollar bills. The vi
rtues of their merchandise are self-evident. She carries an umbrella every day no matter what the news says because you can never tell and is vindicated by moisture. It pops open. The doused press down on reluctant buttons and the mechanisms pop open. Underneath their personal domes, they are separated from the peasants. To be this easily isolated from all worry. The silver tips dart and jab for eye sockets. Probability says many are blinded by pointy umbrella spokes and you are surely the next victim. At the corner he wrestles with a ghost for the soul of his umbrella. The gust gains the upper hand as he waits for the light to change and the umbrella is ripped inverse. Many are lost. The wounded, the fallen in this struggle, poke out of trash cans, abandoned, black fabric rippling against split chrome ribs. This is their lot. Either in the trash can or forgotten in the restaurant, the movie theater, the friend’s foyer, spreading their slow puddles across floors. Forming an attachment to an umbrella is the shortest route to heartbreak in this town. Any true accounting would reveal that there are only twenty umbrellas in this city, in constant movement from palm to palm. Bunch of Lotharios. So do we learn loss from umbrellas.
THE NEW RIVERS along curbs shove newspaper and grit to gutters. Too big to squeeze through grates the garbage bobs in place like the unstylish waiting for nightclub doors to open. The liquid sinks below. The alligators don’t mind. Eventually a clog sends a puddle advancing. A sliver of moon, the surface of the puddle is tormented by brief craters. Each drop explodes and extends the surface of the puddle. Doing their part for the water cycle, the bus wheels return the puddle to air again. Complacent beneath her umbrella she is thoroughly soaked when she stands too close to the curb. The enemy came from below. The metropolitan transit authority reinforces old lessons: every puddle wants to hug you. If not heavy motor vehicles then it is the children in their bright red boots detonating puddles on people. Knock it off.